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More Reviewin'
Yesterday was lovely, though I wish the sun weren't quite so slow to warm my apartment, especially when I'm up early and sitting at the computer. Oh well, what can you do?
Here are the rest of my movie reviews.
From Toronto to Tokyo, I watched:
Breakfast With Scot
A Canadian film, shown on Air Canada! What are the odds?
I don't think Toronto is ever named, but with the Leafs stuff all over, where else could it be? Eric is a former pro hockey player, now a sportscaster, and is not out at work. Sam is the more stereotypically metrosexual gay guy. Sam's brother's former girlfriend dies of an overdose and though she'd named Billy as guardian of her son (though he's not the father), Billy is off in Brazil so the kid is sent to stay with Eric and Sam until Billy shows up. The kid, Scot, is the most flamboyant eleven-year-old you can imagine, which confounds Eric, who does not want kids, no end. Eric gets all the best lines, too. "What's gardenia?" "I think... Scot might be gay."
The story is mainly about the relationship between Eric and Scot, which develops in a realistic way. For me, however, the foul-mouted neighbour kid Ryan stole the show. He was hilarious! I also spent a good part of the movie trying to place the lead actors. I was sure I'd seen them before, and figured it must have been on tv, because I couldn't attach names to the faces. I looked them up after and it turns out I remember the guy who plays Sam from Angels in America and possibly also Law & Order.
This is a sweet, funny film. I can't say it was groundbreaking in any way, and it certainly didn't come close to toppling my go-to "feel-good gay movie" (Beautiful Thing) from its pedestal, but what it does, it does well. The actors are good, the story is straightforward, and there's a happy ending. Except I felt sorry for Mia, even though she only gets about five lines, for being with Billy the loser.
8/10
Tales From the Golden Age (Amintiri din epoca de aur)
This Romanian film is a collection of different stories, each based on an urban legend that circulated in the late Communist era. One, for instance, is about a teenage girl who gets in on an older guy's moneymaking scheme, expanding on it in order to raise money for her upcoming school trip. Another is about a family trying to figure out how to slaughter a pig in their tiny apartment without the neighbours finding out (because then they'd have to share the meat). My favourites, and the two funniest ones, were definitely "The Legend of the Party Photographer" and "The Legend of the Official Visit".
In the former, the central press agency is thrown into deep debate when deciding on which photograph to use on the front page of the newspaper: "Make our leader look taller," because he's shorter than the visiting dignitary. "He's not wearing a hat, and d'Estaing is. It's as though he's doffing his hat to capitalistm!" The two photographers do their cut and paste job (there was a time, before Photoshop, when such things were done manually -- incredible, I know!), making Ceauşescu taller and giving him a hat. Luckily, some astute officer notices that they forgot to remove the hat in his hand and they're able to stop the newspaper deliveries before the whole country is made to wonder why their leader needed two hats.
The latter is about the small village on the route of an official motorcade. The villagers are in their finest, practising patriotic songs and getting their livestock ready ("Why have you got a cow? No cows! Get sheep!") when an inspector comes along to check that everything is up to standard. They ply him with alcohol and everything seems to be going fine until they receive a phone call telling them the route's been changed and the motorcade won't be going through after all. Well. What are they to do? Drunk and determined to have fun, they all get on the carousel (hired especially for the occasion) and start to spin: the official, the mayor, the carousel owner, everyone. Unfortunately, this means that no one is around to stop the machine. "Legend has it they were still spinning when the motorcade drove through the next morning."
A couple of the stories (mostly the first one, "The Legend of the Air Sellers") dragged a bit, but what I found really interesting was how society was still obsessed with money and how everything had a price, even if it was in other goods: the level of bartering going on at all times seemed alien to me. In the story about the pig, for instance, there's much talk of someone's cousin procuring this in exchange for something else and in "The Legend of the Chicken Driver", a sad story about the lengths people are willing to go to to cheat the system and to get eggs for Easter, in exchange for some flour and sugar to bake a cake.
I'll give this 7.5 overall, though that's an average for all the stories.
Vision - Aus dem Leben der Hildegard von Bingen
You may have heard of Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th century German nun who was a mystic, a philosopher, a writer, a composer, and pretty much everything else, too. The film is of her life story, so spans a good eighty years, from her youth in the cloister to her death. It examines her battle to be taken seriously (her visions were doubted by some, but the pope backed her) and it's an interesting look at the life of a medieval religious community: when a fellow nun commits suicide after finding out she's pregnant, Hildegard's heated argument with the abbot (because no monk has come forward to confess to being the father, but the abbott still thinks it's all the nun's fault) winds up in her taking all the nuns to a new location to build a convent of their own. Many of the nuns, however, balk at the hard work, as they're mostly from rich families and disdainful of physical labour. It comes to a vote: should they be allowed to leave, or should they be punished for disobedience?
The central relationship in Hildegard's life is with Richardis, who begged her mother to allow her to become a nun after having heard (or read?) of Hildegard's visions. At first, Richardis simply worships the ground Hildegard walks on, but over time, Hildegard comes to love Richardis just as much. It's not quite like the love between mother and daughter, and it's very hard to not see their love as romantic, though without a sexual aspect; as deep as friendship can go, I suppose. "Please don't take her away from me, I can't live without her!"
One thing that bothers me about movies set in the Middle Ages is how often you see faded Gothic structures. Sure, they look like that today, but back then, they would have looked a) much newer and b) inside, they probably wouldn't have been so colourless. Another annoyance: nuns with perfectly plucked eyebrows, no matter the period, especially nuns who grew up in a convent.
The movie was interesting, but as it covered a whole life, it seemed almost unfocused at times, and lingered on some things that didn't seem as interesting or important as others.
7/10
It's Kind of a Funny Story
Again, I spent much of the movie wondering why the main actor seemed familiar, given that I'd never heard of the movie before. I looked him up when I got home... and I still don't know why he seems familiar, because he hasn't been in anything I've seen. Maybe he looks like someone else?
Anyway, this is a good, low-key little film. The main character, Craig, is a teenager suffering from depression. One night, after hours of contemplating suicide, he checks himself into a mental health ward. Because the teenagers' ward is undergoing renovation, they've been moved in with the adults. Follow five days of Craig beginning to come to terms with himself and his condition, as well as dealing with this family and friends and befriending with the other patients. His friendship with Bobby is especially sweet, and their role-playing for Bobby's interview and for Craig asking Noelle out are really funny. Noelle herself is absolutely adorable. <3
I thought it was interesting to see an exploration of mental health issues that don't focus on something more dramatic. Craig explains, in voice-over, that he sometimes feels that he doesn't have any right to complain about his problems -- it's not like he has a bad life, or that he hasn't got opportunities many people will never have, after all. But seeing people with worse problems doesn't negate the fact that he also needs help and hopefully, if he gets the help he needs now, he'll learn how to deal with his condition so that it doesn't cause larger problems later on.
8/10
Io, Don Giovanni
It's full of pretty costumes and pretty people, so Don Giovanni is at least nice to look at. The story is about Lorenzo da Ponte, who wrote the libretto for Mozart's famous opera; how he was forcibly converted as a youth (he was from a Jewish family), joined the Church, but was more or less kicked out when the higher ups found out about his many indiscretions of the carnal sort. Moving to Vienna, he devoted himself to writing, continued chasing skirts but never forgot Annetta, who he meets up with again later. They end up together, as if that were any surprise.
With Casanova as another important character, I felt this movie should have been sexier than it was. Not necessarily racier, but I was hoping for more passion from the main character. The most passionate scenes, I felt, were when Mozart and his wife were arguing -- thought that may be because those two were by far the best actors in the production. Not that anyone was less than competent, but I found myself wishing the movie had been about Wolfie and his dear Constanze.
6/10
Back in Japan...
The Departed
I saw Infernal Affairs years ago, and when the buzz started about The Departed, I was mostly annoyed that people didn't know it was a remake of a very good film, though reserved judgement on it until I saw it for myself.
The critics were right, The Departed is a great movie, and Leonardo DiCaprio was amazing. I can't help but compare him to Tony Leung, though, and while my love for Mr. Leung burns bright, I'd say DiCaprio spins the role in a different, though no less excellent, way. Matt Damon, on the other hand, plays Sullivan as more of an asshole than I remember Andy Lau playing the same character.
The main differences between the films (apart from the settings, obviously) are that The Departed felt it necessary to include a love interest, the different levels of government, and that it's really, really long. It felt twice as long as Infernal Affairs, though it thankfully didn't drag. The love interest was well done, but OF COURSE they both end up with the same woman, and it's never stated whose baby it is, though if the timeline were a bit clearer, it would be easier to figure out if it possibly is Costigan's; though going by Madolyn's actions, she seems to believe it's Sullivan's.
One thing that was woven into the story was how the different levels of law enforcement (Boston police, state police, FBI) all have their own moles in the Irish mob, none of them aware of the others (some of the characters and events are based on actual people and events, it seems). This made for a few twists I wasn't expecting, as the Hong Kong movie had been much simpler in that respect, as there was only one police force to deal with.
Seeing as this is a movie about the mob, there's a lot of violence, Jack Nicholson's character especially relishing in bloody pursuits. This is usually why I don't like watching gangster films, and I did avert my eyes a couple of times, but overall, it never felt gratuitous, so I can live with it. I'm certainly not one to condemn violence in movies, as it's just a movie.
9/10 (Infernal Affairs gets 9.5/10)
And then last night, I watched another movie!
Shortbus
If full frontal nudity and explicit sex (straight, gay, solo, in groups, etc.) offend you or make you uncomfortable, skip this one, because there's plenty of both. In fact, the movie opens with one guy filming his penis while in the bathtub, then cuts to a dominatrix with her client, then visits a couple having athletic sex all over their apartment, then goes back to the first guy attempting auto-fellatio. That said, it's all relevant to the plot (and much more realistic, I think, than if things had not been shown or had been simulated, since it's a film about sex and relationships, after all) and the movie is at times very funny and at times painfully touching.
The story takes place in New York, and the main characters are Jamie andJamie James, a gay couple who have been thinking of opening up their relationship, and who have a stalker (but they don't know about him yet); Sofia, a sex therapist ("I prefer the term 'couples counsellor'") who has never had an orgasm; and Severin, a professional dominatrix who feels unable to have a proper human relationship. Jamie and James, who are seeing Sofia in a professional capacity, find out about her problem and invite her to a sex/art/performance club, where she meets Severin. The story follows all the characters trying to find themselves, which sounds cheesy, but I assure you, it's heartfelt.
The Jamies (as everyone calls them) meet Ceth ("It's pronounced "Seth", actually,"), who falls in love with them, and when James reveals the real reason he wanted to ease someone else into their relationship... oh man, it was sad enough already, but then it just got heartbreaking. There was just so much going on in his eyes but that final smile, at the end, let me know it would be all right.
Sofia is played by Sook-Yin Lee, who some of you may know as a Much Music host back in the '90s, or as a voice on CBC radio. She's a gorgeous woman, and her performance is wonderful. She made me laugh (the scene of her masturbating in the bathroom is priceless) and cry (her mounting distress and frustration is painful to watch).
Another priceless scene is when Severin reveals her true name to Sofia -- I won't spoil that, it's too funny. But I think the best line is definitely from when Severin is trying to help Sofia masturbate: "Picture him -- he's standing there with his lunch tray --" which you really have to hear in context to fully appreciate.
Before this, I'd never seen a movie which had a gay threesome during which all three participants were singing "The Star Spangled Banner". XDDD
8.5/10
FINISHED! Wow, I don't know if I've ever watched that many movies over such a short span of time!
Next time, a couple of book reviews. For now, I've got to get up and do stuff.
Here are the rest of my movie reviews.
From Toronto to Tokyo, I watched:
Breakfast With Scot
A Canadian film, shown on Air Canada! What are the odds?
I don't think Toronto is ever named, but with the Leafs stuff all over, where else could it be? Eric is a former pro hockey player, now a sportscaster, and is not out at work. Sam is the more stereotypically metrosexual gay guy. Sam's brother's former girlfriend dies of an overdose and though she'd named Billy as guardian of her son (though he's not the father), Billy is off in Brazil so the kid is sent to stay with Eric and Sam until Billy shows up. The kid, Scot, is the most flamboyant eleven-year-old you can imagine, which confounds Eric, who does not want kids, no end. Eric gets all the best lines, too. "What's gardenia?" "I think... Scot might be gay."
The story is mainly about the relationship between Eric and Scot, which develops in a realistic way. For me, however, the foul-mouted neighbour kid Ryan stole the show. He was hilarious! I also spent a good part of the movie trying to place the lead actors. I was sure I'd seen them before, and figured it must have been on tv, because I couldn't attach names to the faces. I looked them up after and it turns out I remember the guy who plays Sam from Angels in America and possibly also Law & Order.
This is a sweet, funny film. I can't say it was groundbreaking in any way, and it certainly didn't come close to toppling my go-to "feel-good gay movie" (Beautiful Thing) from its pedestal, but what it does, it does well. The actors are good, the story is straightforward, and there's a happy ending. Except I felt sorry for Mia, even though she only gets about five lines, for being with Billy the loser.
8/10
Tales From the Golden Age (Amintiri din epoca de aur)
This Romanian film is a collection of different stories, each based on an urban legend that circulated in the late Communist era. One, for instance, is about a teenage girl who gets in on an older guy's moneymaking scheme, expanding on it in order to raise money for her upcoming school trip. Another is about a family trying to figure out how to slaughter a pig in their tiny apartment without the neighbours finding out (because then they'd have to share the meat). My favourites, and the two funniest ones, were definitely "The Legend of the Party Photographer" and "The Legend of the Official Visit".
In the former, the central press agency is thrown into deep debate when deciding on which photograph to use on the front page of the newspaper: "Make our leader look taller," because he's shorter than the visiting dignitary. "He's not wearing a hat, and d'Estaing is. It's as though he's doffing his hat to capitalistm!" The two photographers do their cut and paste job (there was a time, before Photoshop, when such things were done manually -- incredible, I know!), making Ceauşescu taller and giving him a hat. Luckily, some astute officer notices that they forgot to remove the hat in his hand and they're able to stop the newspaper deliveries before the whole country is made to wonder why their leader needed two hats.
The latter is about the small village on the route of an official motorcade. The villagers are in their finest, practising patriotic songs and getting their livestock ready ("Why have you got a cow? No cows! Get sheep!") when an inspector comes along to check that everything is up to standard. They ply him with alcohol and everything seems to be going fine until they receive a phone call telling them the route's been changed and the motorcade won't be going through after all. Well. What are they to do? Drunk and determined to have fun, they all get on the carousel (hired especially for the occasion) and start to spin: the official, the mayor, the carousel owner, everyone. Unfortunately, this means that no one is around to stop the machine. "Legend has it they were still spinning when the motorcade drove through the next morning."
A couple of the stories (mostly the first one, "The Legend of the Air Sellers") dragged a bit, but what I found really interesting was how society was still obsessed with money and how everything had a price, even if it was in other goods: the level of bartering going on at all times seemed alien to me. In the story about the pig, for instance, there's much talk of someone's cousin procuring this in exchange for something else and in "The Legend of the Chicken Driver", a sad story about the lengths people are willing to go to to cheat the system and to get eggs for Easter, in exchange for some flour and sugar to bake a cake.
I'll give this 7.5 overall, though that's an average for all the stories.
Vision - Aus dem Leben der Hildegard von Bingen
You may have heard of Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th century German nun who was a mystic, a philosopher, a writer, a composer, and pretty much everything else, too. The film is of her life story, so spans a good eighty years, from her youth in the cloister to her death. It examines her battle to be taken seriously (her visions were doubted by some, but the pope backed her) and it's an interesting look at the life of a medieval religious community: when a fellow nun commits suicide after finding out she's pregnant, Hildegard's heated argument with the abbot (because no monk has come forward to confess to being the father, but the abbott still thinks it's all the nun's fault) winds up in her taking all the nuns to a new location to build a convent of their own. Many of the nuns, however, balk at the hard work, as they're mostly from rich families and disdainful of physical labour. It comes to a vote: should they be allowed to leave, or should they be punished for disobedience?
The central relationship in Hildegard's life is with Richardis, who begged her mother to allow her to become a nun after having heard (or read?) of Hildegard's visions. At first, Richardis simply worships the ground Hildegard walks on, but over time, Hildegard comes to love Richardis just as much. It's not quite like the love between mother and daughter, and it's very hard to not see their love as romantic, though without a sexual aspect; as deep as friendship can go, I suppose. "Please don't take her away from me, I can't live without her!"
One thing that bothers me about movies set in the Middle Ages is how often you see faded Gothic structures. Sure, they look like that today, but back then, they would have looked a) much newer and b) inside, they probably wouldn't have been so colourless. Another annoyance: nuns with perfectly plucked eyebrows, no matter the period, especially nuns who grew up in a convent.
The movie was interesting, but as it covered a whole life, it seemed almost unfocused at times, and lingered on some things that didn't seem as interesting or important as others.
7/10
It's Kind of a Funny Story
Again, I spent much of the movie wondering why the main actor seemed familiar, given that I'd never heard of the movie before. I looked him up when I got home... and I still don't know why he seems familiar, because he hasn't been in anything I've seen. Maybe he looks like someone else?
Anyway, this is a good, low-key little film. The main character, Craig, is a teenager suffering from depression. One night, after hours of contemplating suicide, he checks himself into a mental health ward. Because the teenagers' ward is undergoing renovation, they've been moved in with the adults. Follow five days of Craig beginning to come to terms with himself and his condition, as well as dealing with this family and friends and befriending with the other patients. His friendship with Bobby is especially sweet, and their role-playing for Bobby's interview and for Craig asking Noelle out are really funny. Noelle herself is absolutely adorable. <3
I thought it was interesting to see an exploration of mental health issues that don't focus on something more dramatic. Craig explains, in voice-over, that he sometimes feels that he doesn't have any right to complain about his problems -- it's not like he has a bad life, or that he hasn't got opportunities many people will never have, after all. But seeing people with worse problems doesn't negate the fact that he also needs help and hopefully, if he gets the help he needs now, he'll learn how to deal with his condition so that it doesn't cause larger problems later on.
8/10
Io, Don Giovanni
It's full of pretty costumes and pretty people, so Don Giovanni is at least nice to look at. The story is about Lorenzo da Ponte, who wrote the libretto for Mozart's famous opera; how he was forcibly converted as a youth (he was from a Jewish family), joined the Church, but was more or less kicked out when the higher ups found out about his many indiscretions of the carnal sort. Moving to Vienna, he devoted himself to writing, continued chasing skirts but never forgot Annetta, who he meets up with again later. They end up together, as if that were any surprise.
With Casanova as another important character, I felt this movie should have been sexier than it was. Not necessarily racier, but I was hoping for more passion from the main character. The most passionate scenes, I felt, were when Mozart and his wife were arguing -- thought that may be because those two were by far the best actors in the production. Not that anyone was less than competent, but I found myself wishing the movie had been about Wolfie and his dear Constanze.
6/10
Back in Japan...
The Departed
I saw Infernal Affairs years ago, and when the buzz started about The Departed, I was mostly annoyed that people didn't know it was a remake of a very good film, though reserved judgement on it until I saw it for myself.
The critics were right, The Departed is a great movie, and Leonardo DiCaprio was amazing. I can't help but compare him to Tony Leung, though, and while my love for Mr. Leung burns bright, I'd say DiCaprio spins the role in a different, though no less excellent, way. Matt Damon, on the other hand, plays Sullivan as more of an asshole than I remember Andy Lau playing the same character.
The main differences between the films (apart from the settings, obviously) are that The Departed felt it necessary to include a love interest, the different levels of government, and that it's really, really long. It felt twice as long as Infernal Affairs, though it thankfully didn't drag. The love interest was well done, but OF COURSE they both end up with the same woman, and it's never stated whose baby it is, though if the timeline were a bit clearer, it would be easier to figure out if it possibly is Costigan's; though going by Madolyn's actions, she seems to believe it's Sullivan's.
One thing that was woven into the story was how the different levels of law enforcement (Boston police, state police, FBI) all have their own moles in the Irish mob, none of them aware of the others (some of the characters and events are based on actual people and events, it seems). This made for a few twists I wasn't expecting, as the Hong Kong movie had been much simpler in that respect, as there was only one police force to deal with.
Seeing as this is a movie about the mob, there's a lot of violence, Jack Nicholson's character especially relishing in bloody pursuits. This is usually why I don't like watching gangster films, and I did avert my eyes a couple of times, but overall, it never felt gratuitous, so I can live with it. I'm certainly not one to condemn violence in movies, as it's just a movie.
9/10 (Infernal Affairs gets 9.5/10)
And then last night, I watched another movie!
Shortbus
If full frontal nudity and explicit sex (straight, gay, solo, in groups, etc.) offend you or make you uncomfortable, skip this one, because there's plenty of both. In fact, the movie opens with one guy filming his penis while in the bathtub, then cuts to a dominatrix with her client, then visits a couple having athletic sex all over their apartment, then goes back to the first guy attempting auto-fellatio. That said, it's all relevant to the plot (and much more realistic, I think, than if things had not been shown or had been simulated, since it's a film about sex and relationships, after all) and the movie is at times very funny and at times painfully touching.
The story takes place in New York, and the main characters are Jamie and
The Jamies (as everyone calls them) meet Ceth ("It's pronounced "Seth", actually,"), who falls in love with them, and when James reveals the real reason he wanted to ease someone else into their relationship... oh man, it was sad enough already, but then it just got heartbreaking. There was just so much going on in his eyes but that final smile, at the end, let me know it would be all right.
Sofia is played by Sook-Yin Lee, who some of you may know as a Much Music host back in the '90s, or as a voice on CBC radio. She's a gorgeous woman, and her performance is wonderful. She made me laugh (the scene of her masturbating in the bathroom is priceless) and cry (her mounting distress and frustration is painful to watch).
Another priceless scene is when Severin reveals her true name to Sofia -- I won't spoil that, it's too funny. But I think the best line is definitely from when Severin is trying to help Sofia masturbate: "Picture him -- he's standing there with his lunch tray --" which you really have to hear in context to fully appreciate.
Before this, I'd never seen a movie which had a gay threesome during which all three participants were singing "The Star Spangled Banner". XDDD
8.5/10
FINISHED! Wow, I don't know if I've ever watched that many movies over such a short span of time!
Next time, a couple of book reviews. For now, I've got to get up and do stuff.
no subject
A lot of movies with gay characters are too focussed on the OMGGAY, especially ones recced by some of my friends who are more interested in hot mansmex than actual plot. So this film really appealed to me. I agree it's no groundbreaking work of art, it's just... pleasing. And I may have to go rewatch it now.
Oh, I also appreciated the Black Swan review in your other post - I've been umming and erring over whether to see it or not and it's good to have some feedback!